Tiger Bound Read Online Free Page B

side talents,” he told her, patience thinning. He returned his attention to the man, who had peeled off into the woods onto what must be a rough deer track. “I do one thing—I’m a protector. And I do that well.”
    She hesitated. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I—”
    “You just want me to do this your way.”
    Her hands closed over the calluses again. “I just...” She shook her head. “I just want to believe. I want to know that someone hears me.”
    He turned on her, a surge of frustration and ferocity, held back until it came through only his expression, a blow he didn’t pull when she caught her breath. “That’s why I’ve come. That’s what I do. ”
    The man on the bike disappeared from sight, his outrageously flashy shirt no longer peeking between the trees. Maybe just a man with attitude, triggering Maks’s innate response. Maybe related to Katie’s vision, maybe not.
    One way or the other, Maks would find out.
    That’s why I’ve come. That’s what I do.
    * * *
    Katie took a deep breath as she slipped one foot out the open car door and onto solid ground. Don’t antagonize the tiger.
    And, just as sensibly, don’t antagonize the man who’s here to help you.
    Maybe he was right. It didn’t matter exactly what he believed of her. He had his own reasons for working with her.
    An object thudded lightly against the bumper, moving up the back hatch window in a blur of motion followed by tiny skittering sounds on the roof.
    Maks reached for his door handle in response; a touch on his arm stopped him. She nodded at the windshield, where the marmalade yard cat stalked to the bottom of the windshield and plunked down, curling his tail around his body to offer them a unique perspective. “Maks,” she said, more than relieved for the change of focus. “Meet my cat’s ass.”
    Maks gave the cat’s ass an unreadable look.
    “Used to be a tom, when I moved into his yard,” she said. “Still pretends he is.” A glance. “You’re not going to squirm, right?”
    His growl was as eloquent as any glib word. She laughed.
    And stopped short as she recognized just how quickly she’d dropped her guard.
    The realization froze her breath in her chest. She’d been living here away from Sentinels too long, and she’d forgotten how to protect herself from them—and now the most Sentinel of them all was right here.
    Maks turned green eyes on her, hampered by the way he filled the seat, his legs cramped in the foot well. There was no sign of what she’d seen at the shuttle bus depot—the hesitation, the faint confusion...the faltering. It changed his face entirely, bringing out the strength of eye and brow and jaw.
    “Katie,” he said, as directly as was his wont. “I said...you are safe with me.”
    And he took her hand.
    It seemed an absent gesture. It didn’t stay that way. Not with her hand cradled in his, his thumb brushing the calluses, his fingers warm and—
    A deep groan, a sharp breath, warmth and scent and swirl of feeling—
    Katie stiffened. No, no, not—
    A touch at her waist, a hand gripping the curve of her hip, fingers brushing sensitive skin and heat skirling down through her body—
    A cry. Rough and masculine, wrung from a body in both pain and ecstasy.
    Fingers clamped down on hers. Katie jerked away with a gasp—freeing her hand, freeing her mind from this predator, so much more powerful than she—his pupils gone big and his body clenched. Understanding flooded his expression—of that unexpected invasion, of their fleeting connection...
    Of the astonishing and unexpected intimacy.
    Katie, Chinese water deer, long of limb and quick in flight, could only gape back at him—the tiger, roused and filling her small car. She couldn’t find words.
    But it was Maks who ran.

Chapter 3
    M aks didn’t go far. Not with the log cabin before him and the surrounding woods beckoning of home. He stood there, caught up by it—breathing it in, feeling the very ground press up against his